Boog Powell hit .297 during the 1970 baseball season. He connected for 156 hits that year including 28 doubles and 35 home runs. Boog drove in 114 runs for the Orioles during the year while also scoring 82 times.

Johnny Bench hit .293 for the Reds in 1970. He collected 177 hits in 158 games including 35 doubles and a league-leading 45 home runs. Bench also paced the NL in RBI with 148 while scoring 98 runs. He also won the Gold Glove in the NL for catchers.

I’m not a huge fan of the Donruss Triple Play brand. Personally, I did not find that the cards were very exciting. And I also thought that the large, shifted frame that held the player’s picture took up too much space and limited the effectiveness of a nice, larger image.

But, this Cal Ripken card from the 1992 set escapes that criticism. This card is sweet!

Have a look:

I love the image that was used of Cal for this set. Not only is the card action packed, but you get a good idea of what is happening. It appears that Rickey Henderson (#24) was either picked off or an attempt to pick him off occurred. Cal’s got the ball in his hand and based on the direction that Henderson slid, he looks like he is headed back to 2B. Either that, or Cal snagged a liner off the hitter’s bat and tried to chase Rickey back to second…

I never collected the Bazooka brand of baseball cards when they were first issued, but I am making up for that 20 years later.

These cards are pretty nice.

And they definitely do not have a lot of the gaudy and over-crowded design elements that many cards of the 1990’s featured.

Instead, this set is sharp and clean. It features a border-less design and a nice nameplate that runs horizontally along the bottom of the card.

This is the Eddie Murray card from the 1994 set:

Pretty nice, huh?

I really like the column of player positions that runs vertically down the right-side of the card. The highlighted position of the player being featured is a very nice touch. I’m going to try to do a quick web search for an NL player to see if his card was missing the ‘DH’ position…

Notes From His 1975 Season: Jim Todd pitched in 58 games for the Oakland Athletics in 1975. By the end of the season, he sported a record of 8-13 with 12 saves. Todd worked 122 innings in ’75, allowing 104 hits and 40 runs en route to an ERA of 2.29. In that span, he struck out 50 batters while walking 33.

Notes From Career: Jim Todd pitched for three different teams during his 6-year major league career. Primarily used as a relief pitcher, Todd appeared in 270 games over that time. He has a career record of 25-23 with 24 saves. In 511 innings, Todd allowed 541 hits and 283 runs.

On this date in 1988, Orel Hershiser captured the National League’s Cy Young award in a unanimous vote.

Taking all 24 first-place votes, this award capped an unbelievable season for the right-hander.

A close look at the numbers:

23-8 during the regular season with 15 complete games and 8 shutouts. In 267 innings of work, Hershiser compiled a low ERA of just 2.25. His dominant year led to another selection to the National League All-star team and his first Cy Young Award. During the playoffs, Hershiser led the Dodgers to the World Series championship while winning both the NLCS and World Series MVP awards in the process!!